Music comprises few mysteries these days. Much much less ones that depart extra questions than solutions as they reveal themselves.
Ghillie fits, cult accusations, employed actors, and flights of fancy, they’ve all been part of the Armed‘s journey — till now. While their latest determination to be front-facing concerning the who’s and what’s relating to the curious Detroit collective, for these lengthy ingrained within the insanity of all of it, it is barely more durable to embrace the reality.
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For album 5, Perfect Saviors, the band are toting honesty. In varied interviews, vocalist Tony Wolski (who has passed by varied pseudonyms together with Adam Vallely and Clark Huge) has been open to his place within the band and the way the give attention to their shenanigans was starting to really feel trite. Plus, it does not harm to place the main target squarely on the music — a core element of the Armed that has delivered with each shapeshifting launch. Still, that does not imply there’s not an entire lot to unpack. Here, we have compiled some info to present you a headstart — although, as they’ve brazenly admitted themselves, typically the reality is extra advanced and stranger than fiction.
Who are the Armed?
A seemingly simpler query to reply in 2023 than any of the final decade they have been lively. The idea behind the Armed is easy — a rotating solid of creatives producing melodic and punishing hardcore. From Converge’s Kurt Ballou to Queens of the Stone Age’s Troy Van Leeuwen, the assorted lists littered concerning the web are an limitless scroll of musicians with varied footings in rock and hardcore. They now journey the lands as a six-piece — Wolski, together with Cara Drolshagen, Patrick Shiroishi, Kenny Szymanski, Randall Lee, and Urian Hackney.
But that is simply the framework. Constructed round it is a lore that twists and turns with each music video, or passing interview reply. The actuality they as soon as would have had you imagine is that they are a bunch orchestrated by key protagonist — and occasional antagonist — Dan Greene. Within their music movies, the bespectacled, cult-leader-looking determine cuts a menacing aura. But that is the place issues get intricate. Enter The Armed Multiverse.
Their beginnings stem from the hardcore band Slicer Dicer. After their dissolution, the members took up the mantle below this new pseudonym. A pure evolution into the Armed’s route took maintain. In 2009, the group’s debut album, These Are Lights, got here firing on all cylinders. Mixed by Ballou — an integral participant, and purported key orchestrator to the Armed — the years between 2009 and 2015 are the place the Armed really started to emerge.
It’s right now the band toiled throughout a strong block of EPs: 2010’s Common Enemies — which options the prequl of latest single “Liar 2”, the far less-groove-laden however infectiously biting “Liar” — 2011’s Young & Beautiful, and 2012’s Spreading Joy, with varied retailers favorably evaluating them to Dillinger Escape Plan, because of their incisive trendy tackle hardcore. Trying to discern simply who was concerned at this stage is less complicated stated than achieved. While there exists an interview with the band from a restricted launch of Common Enemies — the place Tony is certainly Tony — the fragments of knowledge dotted concerning the web not often supply any glimpse behind the scenes.
Their 2015 Untitled album is the closest the Armed have remained to their hardcore beginnings. Most importantly, it is the place the Armed really start. Self-released on their very own label, No Rest Until Ruin, the constructing blocks for the complicated, enthralling, and even cinematic imaginative and prescient of the Armed started their ascension.
Fast ahead, and 2018’s Only Love moved to new sonic plains. Bringing synths into the combo, this bolstering of the Armed’s sound is matched by their growth into the cinematic world. Every single started bringing to gentle a brand new character, from interpretive dancers to loners in search of salvation, the puzzle items started altering form and have since refused to stay in place.
Who is Dan Greene?
Dan Greene exists. But he isn’t the figurative Dan Greene. In latest interviews, Wolski has confirmed that Greene is an individual, however the symbolic avatar of the Armed’s exploits taking part in out on display isn’t him. The actual Dan Greene is allegedly on the quilt of Untitled, together with cameos in sporadic movies (“Liar,” “Paradise Day,” “ALL FUTURES”) – the identical individual additionally bares a resemblance to {a photograph} posted for the Armed’s 2021 AMA.
The fictional character’s story is equally as beguiling. Purportedly performed by photographer Trevor Naud, the video for Untitled‘s “Paradise Day,” the primary entry into the Armed’s cinematic mindset introduces one Dan Greene as a pissed off workplace employee ignored by colleagues, finally freezing at a karaoke session. Zoning out and unleashing hell upon the observe, the fragments of his thoughts start to fracture, setting the groundwork for his future escapades.
“Nowhere To Be Found” from Only Love finds chaos ensuing below the manufacturing eye of Greene, a reveal accomplished close to the tip of the seemingly innocuous video that quickly devolves into insanity and dysfunction. Throughout the cycle of their third album, the growth went from world-building to reality-destroying, pushing boundaries with weird ideas that change into more durable to dissect the extra you come.
Greene was even the topic of a non secular tome launched alongside 2021’s ULTRAPOP, an concept cemented within the group’s 2022 dwell album ULTRAPOP: Live At The Masonic. A live performance movie that performs out like a Shyamalan entry into the musical world, all of it fantastically removes you from actuality and retains you guessing whereas the band shift and form between collaborators with ferocious depth.
But for essentially the most half, Greene beguiles as a stoic determine. Often painted in a normy gentle — an workplace employee with a abdomen stuffed with stress-ulcers — the Armed movies give him an outlet to bop, scream, or menacingly mug for the digicam, usually taunting the band (Live At The Masonic) or himself (“Sport of Measure”). The deification of the determine is essential within the rabid fandom, with the trustworthy pinup references and potential meanings across the collective’s releases. It would appear that his place within the Armed’s story has each been overstated and understated over time. He was the purported puppet grasp, songwriter, and vocalist — although having by no means graced a stage together with his presence — however his true objective is to be a conduit for no matter insanity or route they discover, usually to his detriment, together with the dying of his skateboarding buddy within the video for “FT. FRANK TURNER.”
Are they a cult?
In a phrase, no. While the pointed-Infinity image that adorns their releases wouldn’t really feel misplaced on a gritty Netflix documentary, the Armed have at all times been about group. It’s the place they’ve fostered their fanbase, notably in riotous home exhibits, and the place the concepts they ship usually root themselves in. While the fanbase relishes within the cult facet that is usually been inspired by the band’s movies — notably Live At The Masonic — it is much less cult and extra of a non secular expertise for these on the within. Their exhibits have come to be nothing wanting Sunday Service for the trustworthy, with many carrying “My Name is Daniel Greene” title tags, or lore-branded merch as a Bat sign of types.
2021’s ULTRAPOP sought to increase upon this aspect of their imaginative and prescient. Finding the band actually altering their physicality by bulking up and turning themselves into ripped purveyors of demonic white-noise pop, the rollout was handled just like the founding of a brand new motion that the orchestrators unflinchingly imagine in. The Discord server that got here off the again of the world-building fourth album now performs host to bringing their followers collectively. Through memes, cataloging, and indispensable fact-finding, the Armed trustworthy unfold the nice phrase with the power of an keen, erm, cult.
No good fan military could be something and not using a signature, and within the case of the Armed’s trustworthy, you’ll usually see a singular phrase imposing itself on any band-related put up: refract. A catch-all which means nothing but means every thing. It signifies inclusion with out exclusion. You can select to refract or to not refract. But when you’re on board, it’ll imply greater than any definition.
Exploits
There’s no finish to the Armed’s trolling and toying with each their fanbase and any passerby. While each article is fast to say the utilization of actors and stand-ins each onstage and in interviews, there is no finish to the collective’s on-line quirks. There’s even a video of Greene auditioning (fairly properly, to be truthful) for Stone Temple Pilots (with Wolski on guitar) earlier than an abrupt gearshift into chaos.
For Only Love’s single “Role Models,” in collaboration with Adult Swim, they recruited one Tommy Wiseau (the man from The Room) to seem in a ghillie swimsuit and react accordingly to his first pay attention of the music. Which, when you’re acquainted with his vibe, is an unbelievable addition to the Armed canon that feels as creepy because it does enlightening.
“FT. FRANK TURNER” is probably their most publicized stunt to this point. The 2019 single was introduced to a lot confusion from all not concerned, including Frank Turner. Even that includes a vocal line from Turner — from a session he confirmed he carried out with Ballou (cementing his place within the Armed canon), the art work comes adorned with Frank Carter (Gallows (UK), Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes).
They additionally come toting reality-show familiarity. “Heavily Lined” sees Greene interrupt a packed bar in a seemingly unstaged transfer they replicated with “Liar 2”’s latest video that includes a beat-up wanting Greene dancing on a road in broad daylight below the watchful eye of himself whereas the band intersperse glancing over like a hidden-camera present earlier than all leaving waving goodbye to the viewer. The fourth wall is one they’ve at all times bent and damaged, usually with on-the-nose antics because the aforementioned or with broad audience-prodding maximalism (“AVERAGE DEATH”).
While the longer term for the Armed could also be considered one of reality and honesty, the truth of them being a collective that feeds off of response means the goalposts can change at any time. Perfect Saviors is supposedly the closing of a trilogy of albums analyzing popular culture — an artwork collective mission if ever was one — so no matter’s coming may very properly change face totally. The solely certainty is they’ll proceed to refract.
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